Since the early 1990s, the JSB has been offering advice, support and training to individual tribunals. Through the contacts made with tribunals over the years, it has become clear that there is a great variation in the scope, content and delivery of the training provided by different jurisdictions to their chairs and members.

In supporting tribunals in their training activities, the JSB has been keen to encourage the development of training that is specifically geared to developing the skills needed to be an effective chair or member of a tribunal.

Research
In order to provide comprehensive guidance to tribunals on the skills which tribunals need to develop through training, the JSB carried out a research project in early 1999. This involved research across 16 different tribunals to identify the common roles and tasks that chairs and members must perform in the course of their tribunal work.

The research collected a wealth of information from tribunal chairs and members, tribunal heads, tribunal users and sponsoring departments, using postal surveys, group discussions and face-to-face interviews. The study was based on the premise that it is important to distinguish skills generic to the function of every tribunal, from those specific to individual tribunals. Competences Central to the resulting training needs analysis (TNA) was the identification of a series of 'core competences' and 'additional competences', to reflect the distinction between the roles and tasks carried out by the chair, lay, and specialist members of a tribunal. The key recommendation followed that tribunals adopt a competence-based approach to their training, through introductory and continuation courses, and additional courses for those taking the chair.

Competence-based training is therefore based on the identification of those areas of knowledge, skill, behaviour and personal qualities required to fulfil a particular role effectively. While competences offer systematic, objective and published standards, a common understanding of the role of tribunal members, including chairs, and an opportunity to develop a positive and purposeful working relationship between colleagues. Developments in 2001 and 2002 In 2001 four workshops were held - two in London, one in Leeds and one in Leamington Spa. The 72 participants from 22 different jurisdictions were legal and lay chairs, professional and lay members. Their 216 discussed examples, were recorded on prepared forms. From these records were distilled more detailed competences.

They were matched against schemes in use by the magistracy and under consideration for deputy district judges. Comparisons were also made with those already operating in tribunals, in the Appeals Service (where a chronological approach is taken so as to review the tribunal's work from start to finish of the proceedings) and for Rent Assessment Panels which acknowledge the different roles of the lay and professional members. And checks for compatibility were made against a draft of the Council on Tribunals' Framework of Standards and the Lord Chancellor's Department's (LCD) criteria for appointment to judicial positions.

The resulting scheme, now a coherent and comprehensive draft, was presented for discussion at a seminar on 31 January 2002. In the audience were the heads and presidents of more than 20 tribunals as well as representatives from the Council on Tribunals and the LCD. Their many helpful comments and suggested alterations were assimilated into a further draft that was circulated to them for final comment and also sent to ETAC for their response.

The scheme
There are six 'headline' competences in the completed scheme: law and procedure, equal treatment, communication, conduct of hearing, evidence, and decisionmaking. Each has been sub-divided into a number of core competences, which distinguish between those common to chairs, specialist and lay members, and those separately specific to specialist members and to chairs. Each core competence has one or more performance indicators. Three examples are reproduced below.

Using competences
It is frequently assumed that competences can only be monitored through observation. While that is often the case it need not always be so: standards of written decisions require no visits to the tribunal in action, nor does time-keeping. Others, such as a proper introduction to the proceedings, ensuring equal treatment, and weighing evidence at the hearing and in deliberations, can only be assessed by observation. Either way, if the JSB recommendations are adopted by jurisdictions, tribunals will see a shift in focus of their training towards the acquisition of judicial skills - in addition to continuing to learn about the substantive law essential to their work.

As well as enabling an organisation to identify its training needs, a list of competences can also be used as the framework for a mentoring scheme, or for an appraisal scheme, providing the skeleton for structured feedback on strengths and weaknesses and a model for improvement.

The future
The Lord Chancellor approved the approach taken by the JSB towards the TNA. The Leggatt Review of Tribunals also supported the recommendations of the TNA. Whether or not the Government decides to proceed with Leggatt, the competences scheme described above will progress to the Tribunals Committee and then to the JSB Main Board for approval after which it will be circulated to all tribunal jurisdictions as a model of good practice. The TNA also recommended that training schemes be co-ordinated nationally to ensure that provision is of a consistently high standard. After completing the competence scheme, the JSB sees its next task as establishing national training standards against which different schemes can be measured.

PROFESSOR HAZEL GENN lectures in law at University College London. GODFREY COLE is a District Chairman in the Appeals Service in the South East region.